Apple M3 Processor Series

Understanding possibly five Apple M3 Series processors

Apple M3
Apple announced the M3 series of chips on October 30, 2023, along with the new MacBook Pro and iMac. The M3 is based on the 3 nm process and contains 25 billion transistors, a 25% increase from the previous generation M2. It has 8 CPU cores (4 performance and 4 efficiency) and up to 10 GPU cores. Apple claims CPU improvements up to 35% and GPU improvements up to 65% compared to the M1.

Apple M3 Pro
The M3 Pro is a more powerful version of the M3, with six performance cores, six efficiency cores, 14 to 18 GPU cores, 16 Neural Engine cores, up to 36 GB unified RAM with 150 GB/s memory bandwidth, and 48% more transistors. It is used in the 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pro. Apple claims the CPU performance is 30 percent faster than the M1 Pro and the GPU is 40 percent faster than the M1 Pro.

Apple M3 Max
The M3 Max is a larger version of the M3 Pro, with ten or twelve performance cores, four efficiency cores, 30 to 40 GPU cores, 16 Neural Engine cores, up to 128 GB unified RAM with up to 400 GB/s memory bandwidth, and more than double the transistors. It is used in the 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pro. Apple claims the CPU performance is 80 percent faster than the M1 Max and the GPU is 50 percent faster than the M1 Max.

Apple M3 Ultra is currently unreleased
Wikipedia 

The M3, M3 Pro and M3 Max use the N3B architecture 3nm process. The N3B process is purported to have a 15% performance boost and a 30% power saving improvement over the N5P process in the M2.

Apple says the M3 Series is 30% faster than the M1 Series, and 15% faster than the M2 Series.

The M3 series is improved but probably not enough for most people to upgrade from a M2 equivalent. The M3 series is improved enough for many people to upgrade from an M1 equivalent but not all people will find value even in that upgrade.

The brilliance of Apple silicon is the components of each one are the same. There are just more or less of them in each type.

Performance of the various M3 processors, just like their predecessors really will boil down to the base M3 processor performance.

The CPU/GPU core counts are a bit unexpected, in some cases fewer than M2 Series. Also notice the M3 Pro memory bandwidth is down to 150GB/s and M3 Max 14 CPU core, 30 GPU core is 300GB/s.

Apple has re-balanced the M3 Pro and M3 Max with a larger performance gap between them. The M3 Pro has more emphasis on power efficiency than performance improvement. The M2 Pro already punches hard and power efficiency is always a good thing in a laptop, but in many ways the M3 Pro is a sidegrade from the M2 Pro. In other words in a similar performance range.

The M3 Max is a different story though. In CPU benchmarks, the M3 Max outperforms the M1 Ultra. In GPU benchmarks, the M3 Max tests close to the M1 Ultra.

The M3 Ultra and potential M3 Extreme, when released will significantly push Apple silicon to all new performance levels

Here’s the fun parts. Rumors say the M3 Ultra will use the N3E architecture 3nm process which is even faster and more efficient than N3B.

It is also very interesting to note, that if you look at the M3 Max die in the image above, there appears to be no UltraFusion interconnect. This suggests that the M3 Ultra will be a standalone chip, instead of 2 connected M3 Maxs. This brings in new possibilities. For example there could be a different mix of performance cores and efficiency cores or even no efficiency cores.

The most exciting possibility in my opinion is the M3 Ultra could have its own type of UltraFusion interconnect, to allow connecting two M3 Ultras (or more) creating the M3 Extreme. The ‘Extreme’ permutation has yet to become real of course, but is surmised to be the next logical step up.

I’m going to guess that an M3 Extreme will not be available in the Mac Studio, but only in the Mac Pro. The Mac Pro needs further differentiation from the Mac Studio and this would do it.

At any rate, only time will tell. I can’t wait to see what actually happens.

** If you are browsing this page from a phone, you may want to view the following chart in landscape mode.

Component	M3	M3 Pro	M3 Max	M3 Ultra ?	M3 Extreme ?
Efficiency CPU Cores	4	6	4	8	16
Efficiency Clock	2.75GHz	2.75GHz	2.75GHz	2.75GHz	2.75GHz
Performance CPU Cores	4	5 or 6	10 or 12	20 or 24	40 or 48
Performance Clock	4.05GHz	4.05GHz	4.05GHz	4.05GHz	4.05GHz
Neural Engine Cores	16	16	16	32	64
GPU Cores options	8 or 10	14 or 18	30 or 40	60 or 80	120 or 160
Unified Memory options	8GB 16GB 24GB	18GB 36GB	36GB 48GB 64GB 96GB 128GB	64GB 96GB 128GB 192GB 256GB	128GB 192GB 256GB 384GB 512GB
Memory Bandwidth	100GB/s	150GB/s	300GB/s or 400GB/s	800GB/s	1600GB/s
Video Decode Engines	1	1	1	2	4
Video Encode Engines	1	1	2	4	8
ProRes Encode-Decode Engines	1	1	2	4	8

Assuming a 2 year processor life cycle, before the end of 2025 the M3 Series should be history and fully replaced by the Apple M4 Processor Series in newly released products.

CPU & GPU Performance Benchmarks

Videos

Yehuda Rothschild Apple M3 Processor Series YouTube Channel

Buying an Apple M3 Series computer

Any Apple M3 Series computer will be an incredible experience compared to music and video production on Intel hardware. However it is highly recommended to get at least 16GB of memory (or more) and 512GB storage (or more) if you select an M3 Series system.

There are 9 basic form factors of Apple macOS systems with M3 Series processors expected, 5 laptops and 4 desktops.

• 13″ MacBook Air M3
• 15″ MacBook Air M3
• 14″ MacBook Pro M3
• 14″ MacBook Pro M3 Pro & M3 Max
• 16″ MacBook Pro M3 Pro & M3 Max
• 24″ iMac M3
• Mac mini M3 & M3 Pro
• Mac Studio M3 Max & M3 Ultra
• Mac Pro M3 Ultra & M3 Extreme

Thanks!
-Yehuda

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